GettingDown Posted October 19, 2015 Share Posted October 19, 2015 As usual I am here for the same reason as always. My birthday is coming up 27 in a matter of weeks, and all I worry about still is death, specifically hell. I cannot seem to believe in God, it makes no sense, he's crazy. On the other hand when I think if God being a possibility.... I get annoyed didn't ask to be here, I didn't ask for life, nor death, but I have no freedom in how I live? Where is the solace in this? It makes no sense, and why does such an all might people need mere humans to worship it?! It's so bizarre, yet I fear hell. I've considered going back to the faith but my logical mind can't wrap my head around it, even though I still have emotional fear of hell. That in turn makes me feel like I have "blasphemed" the spirit. Yesterday j was almost in a state of paralysis over hell, to the point I felt the bad feeling in my chest, like a panic attack or something. Any help guys? Also I'd like to hear from people that come from the Pentecostal background as I think that's a special type of mind fuck, the prophets, speaking in tongue, healing yada yada yada! Love u guys! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mymistake Posted October 19, 2015 Share Posted October 19, 2015 Welcome GD. Nice to see you. I became entwined with Pentecostals when my mother sent me to a Christian camp some time around ten. Next I attended a Pentecostal junior high, then high school. Finally we switched churches to the one run by my high school pastor. So I did the whole baby talking babble thing and devoted most of my life for preparing to the Great Tribulation which was suppose to happen 25 years ago. I don't know if the other Pentecostals are into End Times like we were but my local sect was crazy about it. From your OP it sounds like you have some emotional fear. You could research the origins of hell. You could look up Sheol in the Old Testament and realize the Hebrews had no afterlife. You can study history and cultural anthropology to note that the New Testament and Hell are the Hebrew response to the Greek influence that came from Alexander the Great conquering the region. You can delve into the Greek origins of Hades and see how primitive humans were trying to come to grips with volcanos that they did not understand. Really how much does a physical description of Hades or the underworld (or even Christian Hell) sound like volcanic activity? Hades and Hell are even down in the Earth, below ground, where volcanic activity takes place with sulphur (brimstone) and magma (lake of fire). But I'm not sure that will help you because emotions can be stronger than academics. It may not respond to knowledge. In my experience it took comedy to conquer my fear. I watched youtube videos until all the things I was afraid of became silly on an emotional level. You can't be afraid of something that is silly. And now I can't read the Old Testament passages Christians use to prop up their theology without cracking a smile. Really? You mean God forgot? Wait, God didn't see this was going to happen so God had regrets? What kind of all powerful deity screws up and gets mad at his creation? So God created rainbows as his own personal post-it note to help him with his bad memory? And the New Testament is just as bad. John 3:16 - love wouldn't build Hell. Wait, God is his own son so he got his own mother pregnant? So cosmic zombie had to return from the dead in order to learn how to forgive? I wish you total success in this journey. Let us know how it goes and what we can do to help. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super Moderator TheRedneckProfessor Posted October 19, 2015 Super Moderator Share Posted October 19, 2015 I was raised in the pentecostal tradition and wasn't able to get out until I was 30. I had always thought that the fear of hell didn't bother me because jesus would understand that, even if I wasn't perfect and holy, I was doing the best I could with what I had to work with. However, the first major thought process I had upon realizing that I no longer believed was, "What if hell is real and I end up going there?" This demonstrated to me that, for all my attempts to make my "relationship with jesus" the center point of my christianity, it still, ultimately, boiled down to me being a christian because I was scared of hell--not because jesus loved me, or because I was grateful to be forgiven--but because I didn't want to go to hell. Since then I have realized two things: that my intellect is the most important tool I have for shaping my life and character; and that my personal integrity is the most important personal trait I have. Essentially, the sum total of my life can be reduced down to these two things--intellect and integrity. They are, more than anything else, what make me who I am. Thus, for me, now, to say, "jesus is lord" would be for me to betray both my intellect and my integrity. There is no way I can honestly make this statement because I know it not to be the truth. It would be a lie. However, if we assume that the christian religion is true, then pronouncing that lie is the only hope I have of going to heaven... or rather, the only hope I have of escaping hell. As a result, I am doomed to hell because I refuse to betray myself. god, in his infinite mercy, has determined that I deserve hell because I choose to remain true to who I am, and prize intellect and integrity above all else. On the other hand, I could lie. I could say, "jesus is lord" in an effort to save myself from eternal conscious torment. But to do so would result in spending eternity with the knowledge that I betrayed myself and everything I held most dear in life. Moreover, I would have to spend eternity with the very god who would have happily sent me to hell for being honest and true; and, worse still, I would be expected to worship this vile fiend who only allowed me into heaven because I capitulated to the emotional blackmail of betraying myself. This, in short, would be no different than spending eternity in hell. Especially if one subscribes to the idea that hell is eternal separation from god. How much more separated would I be to actually be in his presence but have the knowledge that who I truly am was destroyed in the attempt to get there? I have concluded that, for myself, heaven and hell are essentially the same--eternal separation from myself and god. Since this is the case, I choose to remain true to myself and live my life in honesty and thoughtfulness. If there is a god, and if he cannot accept me for who I am, then I'd just as soon not spend anymore time in his presence than necessary. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adam5 Posted October 19, 2015 Share Posted October 19, 2015 Hi- Yes, I think about hell sometimes too. It is an effective scare tactic. guess that is why the church made such a big deal about it for so long. Nowadays the church has downgraded hell, turned the fires down a bit. It is now somewhere where people "send themselves". (supposedly) Of course hell is completely imaginary as is heaven. No-one can (in reality) point to a single person in heaven, or a single person in hell. Even if we could prove God exists, and that he created the universe, it does not follow that Christians will be going to heaven and unbelevers to hell. Claims must be proven, and Christians (and other religions) have failed to do that. Cheers, Adam 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Castiel233 Posted October 19, 2015 Share Posted October 19, 2015 Rationally, what is the likely hood that the universe was created by an all knowing-all seeing-all powerful deity, who intends to throw over 100 billion human souls (whose thoughts he can read) into hell because his first two human creations ate a piece of magical fruit at the behest of a talking snake....... To add, the over, overwhelmingly scientific consensus (and even accepted by some high ranking Christian thinkers), is that evolution is a fact, meaning that Genesis is false..............and if Genesis is false the Christian faith is false.....making all the stories in The Bible of little value..... Please do not trouble yourself with fears based on the writings and rantings of lunatic desert dwellers long dead................... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Furball Posted October 19, 2015 Share Posted October 19, 2015 Fear of the unknown (death), and using the one thing all species hate (suffering) as means to get people to believe has worked since its inception. The more you think about hell, the less sense it makes. I would recommend you study early christianity and its origins. You'll see that it is all man made, including the concept of hell which christians ripped off from other myths. Hades - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GettingDown Posted October 22, 2015 Author Share Posted October 22, 2015 Okay guys, Thank you for all your responses, they really helped calm me down, I will look and do some more research. My auntie spoke to talking to me today about hell (which i'd usually think is a sign). In which she told me about a dream someone had, in which to summary pokemon are evil and 8 year olds are in hell because they have these toys, and Selina is in hell getting tortured every time people play her music. She even went as far to say this isn't science, it is reality. I was like wdf? What type of god is this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Castiel233 Posted October 22, 2015 Share Posted October 22, 2015 Aside from Hell......what else does the bible "teach" Loads and loads of rubbish....... No one cares if a whale ate a man No one cares if a snake, donkey or bush spoke as a human No one cares if a dude wrestled with an angel No one cares if god mooned Moses........ Try not too worry about hell......if hell was real than its god would be a nutter and unworthy of worship..... Does you auntie give all that she has away, or hates herself and her family as the bible says she should ....I doubt it very much.........if a Christian refuses to obey the rules they claim to love.......they are generally quite ignorant. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Furball Posted October 22, 2015 Share Posted October 22, 2015 No one cares if god mooned Moses........ HA! Good one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LongWayAround Posted October 22, 2015 Share Posted October 22, 2015 All of my kids (adults now) are atheists so if hell is real that it where they will presumably go when they die. I would rather roast for eternity with them than sit in heaven and sing songs of praise to the bastard that sent them there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Castiel233 Posted October 22, 2015 Share Posted October 22, 2015 Millions of people have never even opened a Bible and not suffered one jot for their lack of Christian knowledge..... Christianity can only hurt you mentally , if you take it seriously...... taken all in all, most of the world has not been Christian..... Christians like to boast that 1 in 7 of all humans are Christian.....big wow, that means that 6 in 7 are not Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Furball Posted October 22, 2015 Share Posted October 22, 2015 Millions of people have never even opened a Bible and not suffered one jot for their lack of Christian knowledge..... I have wondered what would have happened with my life if I had never opened the bible or believed in the jesus message. I gave 13 years to that death cult, and it would be interesting to see where my life would be if I never bothered with it at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
themonkeyman Posted October 23, 2015 Share Posted October 23, 2015 Blasphemy of the spirit is when u condemn another Christian. Bartholemew in the Gnostic Works said 'Lord and what is the son against the ghost?' Jesus responded 'if a man speaks against worshipful believer he has comitted this sin because all men are worthy of the ghost' In that logic it means all Christians are going to hell. Also Jesus said of 30000 people who died every day back then 2000 where believers and of those 12 got actually saved (True Christian) in perspective that means 0.01 of all people alive will go to heaven. So of 1 billion Christians only a few thousand are saved lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Castiel233 Posted October 23, 2015 Share Posted October 23, 2015 To those who suffer from anxiety of Christianity's hell....... Picture a Muslim. The guy is really into Islam. So much so, he is an Islamic leader and teacher, with a degree in religious studies . His father and both sets of Grand fathers were Islamic leaders as well......There is zero, zero doubt in his mind that Islam is true......He is well aware of Christian claims, as he has, throughout his life debated Christians. He has read the Bible and found it inferior to the Koran....... He has dedicated his life, with total sincerity to Islam..... He dies, and goes to Hell anyway..... He had a holy book (to him) he believed that Jesus was a great prophet, he lived his life with a genuine love and commit to Islam.....he had no fear of the Hell of the Bible, yet went there anyway...... Through no fault of his own , he got the wrong theology, yet still the Prince of "peace" fries him......... Such is the insanity of Christian dogma and the sheer pointlessness of trying to live up to it........Its an arbitrary game of chance that you have no chance of winning Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rjn Posted November 8, 2015 Share Posted November 8, 2015 As usual I am here for the same reason as always. My birthday is coming up 27 in a matter of weeks, and all I worry about still is death, specifically hell. I cannot seem to believe in God, it makes no sense, he's crazy. On the other hand when I think if God being a possibility.... I get annoyed didn't ask to be here, I didn't ask for life, nor death, but I have no freedom in how I live? Where is the solace in this? It makes no sense, and why does such an all might people need mere humans to worship it?! It's so bizarre, yet I fear hell. I've considered going back to the faith but my logical mind can't wrap my head around it, even though I still have emotional fear of hell. That in turn makes me feel like I have "blasphemed" the spirit. Yesterday j was almost in a state of paralysis over hell, to the point I felt the bad feeling in my chest, like a panic attack or something. Any help guys? Also I'd like to hear from people that come from the Pentecostal background as I think that's a special type of mind fuck, the prophets, speaking in tongue, healing yada yada yada! Love u guys! I had that very same experience myself, and you know what the funny part is? I've never really been a Christian! Now, what does that tell you? If a non-Christian agnostic can experience despair over something he doesn't even believe in, I'd say that's a good indication that the fear is irrational. Almost all anxiety is based on irrational fears. The emotions may feel very real, but the cause isn't. Anxiety pretty much works like this: an object or a thought is conditioned with bad feelings, which makes us fear them. Our brains are wired to have us avoid things we fear because they are potentially dangerous*, but the avoidance reinforces the conditioning with even more fear. Avoiding or attempting to counteract the fear may give some short-term relief, but in the end it only reinforces it further. It's like playing ball with a concrete wall, or scratching a sore spot: the harder you throw, the harder the rebound, and that scratching will eventually lead to a bloody infection! If this or other things like it disturbs you deeply on a recurring basis, I'd suggest talking to a professional. However, to my experience, accepting the fear and then letting it pass without trying to neutralize it works pretty well. *This is probably the result of an old beneficial instinct that aided in survival gone haywire. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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